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Weak Odds for Women in Britain

LONDON — Could the next British prime minister be a woman? A surge of rumors in Parliament means it looks marginally more plausible this week than it did last week. Theresa May, the home secretary, has come under the spotlight for apparently harboring leadership ambitions, and supporters have described her as “Britain’s answer to Angela Merkel,” the German chancellor.

For a brief moment, the idea appeared to have some substance — and the prospect of Britain having a second female prime minister, 23 years after Baroness Thatcher’s departure, seemed more than just wild fantasy.

But, as the attention of political correspondents drifts to different intrigues, the broader backdrop of British politics suggests the likelihood of having a woman lead Britain again anytime soon is remarkably slim.

“Britain is a country ruled largely by men,” the Center for Women and Democracy, a nonprofit group based in Leeds, England, said in a new report on the representation of women in politics and public decision-making in Britain. The conclusion is no great surprise.

The detailed breakdown of the gender divide in positions of power set out in the report, called “Sex and Power 2013,” makes sobering reading for anyone hopeful that some kind of parity might soon be within reach. Each statistic points to a new area where extensive work is required: About 14 percent of university vice chancellors are women, as are less than 16 percent of high court judges.

These figures reflect what many Britons broadly know about the predominance of men in high-powered positions, but they still have the capacity to startle when set down so baldly.

Less than 23 percent of all members of Parliament and 17.4 percent of the cabinet are women. The proportion of female members of Parliament has increased 3.9 percent since 2000, while the percentage of women in the cabinet has decreased 4.3 percent.

In Parliament, 32 percent of the Labour members are women, as are 16 percent of Conservatives and 12 percent of Liberal Democrats. Britain is lagging behind most of the rest of Europe and is dropping down the global league table in terms of the proportion of female legislators, currently 60th of 190 countries, falling from 33rd in May 2001. Of West European countries, only Italy, Ireland and Monaco had a lower percentage in 2012, the report says.

Even the prism through which we view political developments is skewed: 23 percent of accredited lobby journalists — those reporting on Parliament — are women. All the political editors for national daily papers are men, and the number of female correspondents is declining; when Prime Minister David Cameron held a news conference on the coalition government’s midterm review in January, there was a small uproar — headlined in political blogs “Where have all the women gone?” — because he failed to take a single question from a female journalist.

It is probably a mark of the historic sexism of British political correspondents that Ms. May, so briefly fancied for leadership, became famous for her shoes (leopard-print kitten heels) long before anyone paid attention to her opinions.

In other sectors, the divide is little better. British woman are better educated than they have ever been, are attending university in greater numbers and get better degree results than men. They work hard to make their way up the career ladder in the junior ranks of law firms, businesses and medical practices, but — just as in other Western societies — go missing before they reach the top jobs.

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Every positive development seems undermined by a significant step backward. There are more women working in Britain than ever before, with two-thirds of all women employed.

But a paper published last week by a research charity, the Higher Education Careers Services Unit, showed that a stark graduate pay divide exists right from first jobs, and highlighted how 40 years since the Equal Pay Act was passed British women pay a “huge motherhood penalty” in their earnings.

The full-time and part-time gender pay gap stands around 20 percent, and a National Management Salary Survey, conducted by the Chartered Management Institute, revealed a lifetime pay gap of more than £420,000, or $625,000, between female and male executives.

Even recent attempts to celebrate the achievements of British women have caused profound feminist gloom in some quarters. The BBC Radio 4’s daily Woman’s Hour broadcast — a long-running national institution — last month compiled a list of the 100 most powerful women in Britain, and caused dismay by listing the Queen in first place, and two other women who have broadly inherited power from their fathers — Ana Botín, chief executive of Santander, the Spanish bank, at No. 3 and the media mogul Elisabeth Murdoch at No. 5 — in the top five.

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government is working on a series of initiatives designed to bring some improvements. Maternity leave, which is occasionally cited as a feminist setback because it reinforces the notion that child care is primarily the mother’s concern, is in the process of shifting toward shared parental leave, where both parents can divide the time available after a child’s birth.

The government has set up a Women’s Business Council designed — according to Equalities Minister Maria Miller — to “make recommendations on how the talent of our women can be unlocked and allowed to flourish further.”

A year ago, the government started a “Think, Act, Report” initiative, a program that encourages large companies “to examine their recruitment, retention and remuneration policies.” The “flexible, voluntary approach” of both programs has, however, inspired little confidence among equality campaigners.

Ms. May, who was No. 2 on the BBC’s list of powerful women, used to be the equalities minister but handed it to Ms. Miller in a cabinet reshuffle last year.

Last week, British newspapers described the home secretary as the Iron Lady in waiting. If she ever managed to gain power as party leader, it would be a more potent move against a Britain ruled by men than any of her party’s equality initiatives. For the moment, she has said little except to reiterate her loyalty to Mr. Cameron.

Amelia Gentleman is a journalist with The Guardian. Katrin Bennhold is on sabbatical leave.